Harvard students withdraw after cheating in 'Intro to Congress' course

Over half of Harvard University students caught in a wide-ranging cheating scandal in an "Intro to Congress" course have reportedly had to withdraw from the Ivy League school.

According to The Boston Globe, the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences told the Harvard community in an email that more than half of the students brought before the school's Administration Board in the fall were required to withdraw for some period of time.

Of the students not required to withdraw, roughly half were placed on disciplinary probation, while the rest received no punishment and had their cases dismissed.

While the email did not specify that particular course, the Globe confirmed with a university official that the statistics referred to that particular incident.

“Consistent with the Faculty’s rules and our obligations to our students, we do not report individual outcomes of Administrative Board cases, but only report aggregate statistics,” wrote Dean Michael D. Smith. “In that tradition, the College reports that somewhat more than half of the Administrative Board cases this past fall required a student to withdraw from the College for a period of time. Of the remaining cases, roughly half the students received disciplinary probation, while the balance ended in no disciplinary action.’’

The cheating scandal drew headlines when it became public in August, when nearly half of a 279-student class faced possible charges of plagiarism as they turned in strikingly similar answers for assignments for their course, "Government 1310: Introduction to Congress."

At the time, Smith said that the university took the unusual step of announcing the investigation in order to “launch a broader conversation about academic integrity,” according to The Harvard Crimson, Harvard’s student newspaper.

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